Identifier: birdsnature111902chic (find matches)
Title: Birds and nature
Year: 1900 (1900s)
Authors:
Subjects: Birds Natural history
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : A.W. Mumford, Publisher
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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seldom, if ever, inactive, but withever-moving pinion he flits from branchto branch, from tree to tree, and evenwhen giving forth his gushing melody hequivers and sways. Orchard Orioles are masters in the artof nest-building. The nest, a beautifulbasket-like structure about three inchesacross and the same in length, is attachedto half-upright or horizontal branches.Usually it is half pensile, though someare wholly pendent. It is always madeof blades of long, slender grasses woventogether in a most wonderful mannerand lined with plant fiber and feathers.As the grass is invariably used whilefresh and green, the nest is of a more orless green hue at all times, and conse-quently difficult to detect among thethick foliage. The four or five bluish-white eggs are spotted with a purplishcolor. At first the nestlings are fed ontiny insects and later on beetles andgrasshoppers. The number of noxiousinsects a pair of these birds will destroyin a season is almost incredible. Addie L. Booker. 210
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PDOM COL. OMI. ACAD. BCICNCIS. 192 PRAIRIE WARBLER. I DfMKlroic.-i. discolor.) About Lite-size. XFOnO, CHIC<M THE PRAIRIE WARBLER. (Dendroica discolor.) This beautiful little Warbler cannotfail to awaken an interest in bird life inthe mind of any person whose privilegeit is to observe it in its chosen haunts.These are the shrubby pasture lands andthe open woods of the eastern UnitedStates. It is more common in barren,sandy places of the Atlantic coast, whereit seems to find an insect food suited toits taste. It not infrequently visits or-chards, when in bloom, especially thosein retired localities. Wilson, who wroteenthusiastically of the Prairie Warbler,says: They seem to prefer open plainsand thinly-wooded tracts, and have thissingularity in their manners, that theyare not easily alarmed, and search amongthe leaves the most leisurely of any ofthe tribe I have yet met with, seemingto examine every blade of grass andevery leaf, uttering at short intervals afeeble chirr. Dr. Coues w

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